This month Leven Rambin, 23, stars in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the second installment of the successful mythical-adventure series. A natural blonde, the actress had to go brunette to portray Clarisse La Rue, the daughter of Ares, the god of war. “I got to be something completely different than myself in this fantastical world,” she says. “My character is a tough warrior, a really mean chick, who doesn’t take crap from anyone, and who can’t see that she is ever wrong or that she is ever being mean.” Born and raised in Houston, the granddaughter of a former president of Texaco, Leven admits that she was always the “weird drama girl” who didn’t quite fit in: “I don’t like beer, I don’t like tailgates, I don’t like hot dogs, and I don’t eat ribs or B.B.Q.” While still a teenager, Leven landed a job on the first audition, and for six years she played look-alike half-sisters on the soap opera All My Children. In 2007 she received an Emmy nomination. “I’m glad that was my first job, because it taught me an insane work ethic,” she says. “I got to work with really trained actors, people who didn’t put up with me being lazy or spoiled.” Her next break was to be cast in Hunger Games (2012). She played Glimmer, the beautiful and resilient tribute from District One, who is stung to death by bees. “I remember being extra nervous at the audition. I thought I was never going to get it, so I just kind of went all out—just to be able to say that I did—and somehow I got it!” She says she will always carry some rugged Texas traits, and she happily embraces them. “We do not have the Southern-belle quality people assume about us. We actually grow up strong and independent, fighting for what we want.”